A66106:778
Mercy magnified on a penitent prodigal, or, A brief discourse
Mercy magnified on a penitent prodigal, or, A brief discourse wherein Christs parable of the lost son found is opened and applied as it was delivered in sundry sermons / by Samuel Willard ...
printed by Samuel Green for Samuel Philips, 1684
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1. Positive, It points out God's coming to the sinner where he is, to bestow his grace upon him. The sinner could never have gone to God, he therefore cometh to him: He was a great way off, and could come no nearer: The rock of his salvation is higher than he is. Though as to rational and common actions, man is capable of using means, yet as to spiritual ⟨p. 311⟩life-actions, he is void of a principle of them: like Lazarus, he is both dead, and bound in his grave cloths: God therefore by his spirit comes to his graves side, to his pits mouth, where he is perishing, and thence he fetcheth him,: and is not this wonderful love? Had not God come hither, the sinner neither could nor would ever have come to him: that is Emphatical, Zech. 9. 11. I have sent forth my Prisoners out of the pit where there is no water.
1. Positive, It points out God's coming to the sinner where he is, to bestow his grace upon him. The sinner could never have gone to God, he therefore cometh to him: He was a great way off, and could come no nearer: The rock of his salvation is higher than he is. Though as to rational and common actions, man is capable of using means, yet as to spiritual ⟨p. 311⟩life-actions, he is void of a principle of them: like Lazarus, he is both dead, and bound in his grave cloths: God therefore by his spirit comes to his graves side, to his pits mouth, where he is perishing, and thence he fetcheth him,: and is not this wonderful love? Had not God come hither, the sinner neither could nor would ever have come to him: that is Emphaticall, Zech. 9. 11. I have sent forth my Prisoners out of the pit where there is no water.
2. Comparative; he not only comes, but he comes in hast, to the help of the poor dying creature, Bis dat, qui citò dat. Running is a note of speed, and signifies a great commotion of the affections: God makes great hast to bring relief to a perishing sinner. The Heathen painted love with wings, noting the swiftness of this affection in its actions. Here therefore God's wonderful love to a sinner manifests it-self, in that he comes to him unsent for, and brings his grace, when it was unsought,